On the authority of MrPresident, a 13 man committee was set up by the Office of the National SecurityAdviser to audit the procurement of arms and equipment in the Armed Forces andDefence sector from 2007 to date.

While the committeewhich was inaugurated on 31 August 2015 is yet to complete its work, itsinterim report has unearthed several illicit and fraudulent financialtransactions.

As part of thefindings, the committee has analyzed interventions from some organizations thatprovided funds to the Office of the National Security Adviser, DefenceHeadquarters, Army Headquarters Naval Headquarters and Nigerian Air ForceHeadquarters, both in local and foreign currencies.

So far the total extrabudgetary interventions articulated by the committee is Six Hundred and FortyThree Billion, Eight Hundred and Seventeen Million, Nine Hundred and FiftyThousand, Eight Hundred and Eighty Five Hundred Naira and Eighteen Kobo(N643,817,955,885.18).

The foreign currencycomponent is to the tune of Two Billion, One Hundred and Ninety Three Million,Eight Hundred and Fifteen Thousand US Dollars and Eighty Three Cents($2,193,815,000.83).

These amounts excludegrants from the State Governments and funds collected by the DSS and Police. Itwas observed that in spite of this huge financial intervention, very little wasexpended to support defence procurement.

The committee alsoobserved that of 513 contracts awarded at $8,356,525,184.32; N2,189,265,724,404.55 and €54,000.00; Fifty Three (53) were failed contractsamounting to $2,378,939,066.27 and N13, 729,342,329.87 respectively.

Interestingly, it wasnoted that the amount of foreign currency spent on failed contracts was morethan double the $1bn loan that the National Assembly approved for borrowing tofight the insurgency in the North East.

The committee alsodiscovered that payments to the tune of Three Billion, Eight Hundred and FiftyMillion Naira (N3, 850,000,000.00) were made to a single company by the formerNSA without documented evidence of contractual agreements or fulfilment of taxobligations to the FGN.

Further findingsrevealed that between March 2012 and March 2015, the erstwhile NSA, Lt Col MSDasuki (rtd) awarded fictitious and phantom contracts to the tune of N2,219,188,609.50, $1,671,742,613.58 and €9,905,477.00. The contracts which weresaid to be for the purchase of 4 Alpha Jets, 12 helicopters, bombs andammunition were not executed and the equipment were never supplied to theNigerian Air Force, neither are they in its inventory.

Even more disturbingwas the discovery that out of these figures, 2 companies, were awardedcontracts to the tune of N350, 000,000.00, $1,661,670,469.71 and €9,905,477.00alone. This was without prejudice to the consistent non-performance of thecompanies in the previous contracts awarded.

Additionally, it wasdiscovered that the former NSA directed the Central Bank of Nigeria to transferthe sum of $132,050,486.97 and €9,905,473.55 to the accounts of SocieteD’equipmente Internationaux in West Africa, United Kingdom and United States ofAmerica for un-ascertained purposes, without any contract documents to explainthe transactions.

The findings made sofar are extremely worrying considering that the interventions were grantedwithin the same period that our troops fighting the insurgency in the NorthEast were in desperate need of platforms, military equipment and ammunition.Had the funds siphoned to these non performing companies been properly used forthe purpose they were meant for, thousands of needless Nigerian deaths wouldhave been avoided.

Furthermore, theridicule Nigeria has faced in the international community would have beenavoided. It is worrisome and disappointing that those entrusted with thesecurity of this great nation were busy using proxies to siphon the nationaltreasury, while innocent lives were wasted daily.

In light of thesefindings, President Muhammadu Buhari has directed that the relevantorganizations arrest and bring to book, all individuals who have been foundcomplicit in these illegal and fraudulent acts.

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